feeling listless

Arts The Arts made easy. If only this existed...

"I wish there was a 24-hour hotline I could call at night to have someone explain to me what the heck Bjork is singing about.
Me: "Why is Bjork's album called 'Vespertine'?"
Hotline assistant: "It's a combination of 'vespers,' which are evening prayers at day's end, and 'valentine,' an expression of love, so what we have, metaphorically speaking, is a love song for the end of the world."
Me: "Whoa, that is heavy. And what's with the swan dress she wears when she performs, and the giant ear muffs? What does that mean?"
Hotline assistant: "It means she's nuts."
Me: "Oh."
Hotline assistant: "Well, duh."

Actually his other suggestion of having an expert on hand in a gallery isn't that unusual. When I was an invigilator at The Henry Moore Instiute, we were actively encouraged to speak to the visitor in much the way the writer descibed -- and they were usually quite abstract works. I didn't actually know much more than the exhibition catalogue, but the trick was to ask the right questions so that the visitor became satisfied with their own answers. Cheating? [via aj]